Nowadays Chomsky points out something you can read in the December 23rd, 1985 edition of the New York Times - that six years after the hue and cry all over the US about "Cambodian genocide", the US began sending millions to Cambodia in order to arm Pol Pot.
Of course at this time the US was using its power at the UN to keep the Cambodian UN seat in the hands of the political coalition that the Cambodian communists belonged to.
He also points out the mass murder the US air force carried out in Cambodia, bombing rural peasant villages. That the US media ignored a genocide in East Timor that was happening at the time of the communists taking power in Cambodia.
Insofar as "denial of the Cambodian genocide" by Chomsky - could you give an example of a statement he made about Cambodia which was not true? If you are unable to do that, it is just mud-throwing - in some other thread he's said to be denying Nazi genocide in Europe because he was opposed to the jailing of a French professor accused of being a holocaust denier.
> could you give an example of a statement he made about Cambodia which was not true? If you are unable to do that, it is just mud-throwing
Mud-throwing? I am just siting a wikipedia article, please care to follow the link. Even Chomsky sort of acknowledged that he was wrong on the subject, but you still can't do that.
"Cambodia scholar Bruce Sharp criticized Chomsky and Herman's Nation article, as well as their subsequent work After the Cataclysm (1979), saying that while Chomsky and Herman added disclaimers about knowing the truth of the matter, and about the nature of the regimes in Indochina, they nevertheless expressed a set of views by their comments and their use of various sources. For instance, Chomsky portrayed Porter and Hildebrand's book as "a carefully documented study of the destructive American impact on Cambodia and the success of the Cambodian revolutionaries in overcoming it, giving a very favorable picture of their programs and policies, based on a wide range of sources." Sharp, however, found that 33 out of 50 citations in one chapter of Porter and Hildebrand's book derived from the Khmer Rouge government and six from China, the Khmer Rouge's principal supporter.[8]
Veteran Cambodia correspondent Nate Thayer said of Chomsky and Herman's Nation article that they "denied the credibility of information leaking out of Cambodia of a bloodbath underway and viciously attacked the authors of reportage suggesting many were suffering under the Khmer Rouge."[18]
Journalist Andrew Anthony in the London Observer, said later that the Porter and Hildebrand's book "cravenly rehashed the Khmer Rouge's most outlandish lies to produce a picture of a kind of radical bucolic idyll."[19] Chomsky, he said, questioned "refugee testimony" believing that "their stories were exaggerations or fabrications, designed for a western media involved in a 'vast and unprecedented propaganda campaign' against the Khmer Rouge government, 'including systematic distortion of the truth.'"
Beachler cited reports that Chomsky's attempts to counter charges of Khmer Rouge atrocities also consisted of writing letters to editors and publications. He said: "Examining materials in the Documentation Center of Cambodia archives, American commentator Peter Maguire found that Chomsky wrote to publishers such as Robert Silver of the New York Review of Books to urge discounting atrocity stories. Maguire reports that some of these letters were as long as twenty pages, and that they were even sharper in tone than Chomsky’s published words."[20] Journalist Fred Barnes also mentioned that Chomsky had written "a letter or two" to the New York Review of Books. Barnes discussed the Khmer Rouge with Chomsky and "the thrust of what he [Chomsky] said was that there was no evidence of mass murder" in Cambodia. Chomsky, according to Barnes, believed that "tales of holocaust in Cambodia were so much propaganda."[21]
Journalist Christopher Hitchens defended Chomsky and Herman. They "were engaged in the admittedly touchy business of distinguishing evidence from interpretations."[22] Chomsky and Herman have continued to argue that their analysis of the situation in Cambodia was reasonable based on the information available to them at the time, and a legitimate critique of the disparities in reporting atrocities committed by communist regimes relative to the atrocities committed by the U.S. and its allies. Nonetheless, in 1993, Chomsky acknowledged the massive scale of the Cambodian genocide in the documentary film Manufacturing Consent. He said, "I mean the great act of genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot, 1975 through 1978 - that atrocity - I think it would be hard to find any example of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury."[8]
Faurisson was sentenced to jail for "denying the Holocaust" as you put it. Chomsky believed Faurisson had the right of free speech "even if Faurisson were to be a rabid anti-Semite and fanatic pro-Nazi" as Chomsky's statement said. Chomsky said to use his statement as wished, and it was put as the preface of a Faurisson book.
When people ask him about this Chomsky says he has signed hundreds of free speech petitions and free speech should not be removed just because he disagrees with the person, citing Thomas Jefferson. Some people believe in free speech, some think people with certain critical views of Nazi era nationality policy towards Jews should be jailed. In the USA, the free speech view tends to win, and this is where Chomsky is from.
Hezbollah has 12 MPs in the Lebanese parliament. It represents the interests of a section of Shia in Lebanon, many of whom were driven from their homes in Palestine in 1948 by Jewish settlers, and are now barred from returning home (whereas a Jew from anywhere in the world is allowed to settle in the West Bank).
The PFLP is "terrorist", Hamas is "terrorist", Hezbollah is "terrorist", the PLO is "terrorist", the DFLP is "terrorist" - anyone who fights back against Zionist (or sometimes American) aggression is labeled a "terrorist".
Hezbollah was formed because Israel invaded Lebanon and began killing Shia there (or letting their helpers do so in Sabra and Shatila). Hezbollah arose to defend the Shia from this foreign invasion.
The section on Hezbollah in this comment contains a ton of factual errors.
>Hezbollah has 12 MPs in the Lebanese parliament. It represents the interests of a section of
Shia in Lebanon,
So far so good
>many of whom were driven from their homes in Palestine in 1948 by Jewish settlers, and are now barred from returning home (whereas a Jew from anywhere in the world is allowed to settle in the West Bank).
Nope, you're confusing Palestinians and Shia Lebanese. Not a single Shia was driven from their home by the creation of Israel in 1948. Hezbollah does not represent Palestinians in Lebanon (who were driven out in 1948) because they are not citizens of Lebanon, despite being born there at this point.
>The PFLP is "terrorist", Hamas is "terrorist", Hezbollah is "terrorist", the PLO is "terrorist", the DFLP is "terrorist" - anyone who fights back against Zionist (or sometimes American) aggression is labeled a "terrorist".
Right, "terrorist" is a pretty relative term.
Organizations calling for genocide of the Jewish people, descendants of those who tried, or allies of such.
That's a mouthful but much more fitting.
This is the type of example scenario where I think 'AI' could come in handy - or really posting bots - as to insert at minimum a link to when certain phrases or statements are detected on public or semi-public forums and the like. A lot of misinformation can quickly get shared, generally one side or the other using as propaganda.
USAID "assistance" to Africa and other countries is more of a gimme to the US big agriculture lobby than to Africa. The US pays big agriculture to send food and agriculture equipment to Africa and other countries. The temporary food abundance often destroys the country's ability to build up its agriculture. Also, it comes with strings attached where the country has to use patented seeds in order to get the aid, making the local farmers dependent on sending money to Monsanto every year - this happened in Haiti and Monsanto is doing it in Africa as well.
Also, USAID is infamous for spreading money around in order to destabilize governments who do not follow the US's dictates.
This notion that USAID is some benevolent aid program is ridiculous. It is a brutal instrument of US foreign policy and big business, cloaked in a very thin veil of liberalism/charity/humanitarianism.
Sure American companies benefit, sure there's some fraud, sure some of it is a foreign policy decision in the US best interests. But a lot of good is done.
The profitability of poverty is foundational to how capitalism works. Workers work, heirs do not. How do heirs manage to expropriate wealth workers create during their surplus labor time? The answer is the reserve army of labor - keep people unemployed or underemployed as a level to use against those who do work.
One sign of this is that unemployment did not even exist several centuries ago in any kind of manner - all those who were capable (except again, those on top expropriating wealth created during worker's surplus labor time) worked.
This is openly discussed in the business press, like this (http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_44/b3653163.htm ) BusinessWeek article "When is the jobless rate too low?" It's not a secret that those who control production are working to create unemployment, poverty etc. It's a foundation of the current economic system.
Drones are flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan right now, atatcking innocent families. A Zionist invasion of Palestine in the 1940s is pushing into Gaza, the West Bank, southwest Syria, and innocent Palestinians are being killed daily - with US backing. The US is doing this all over the world, or enabling it. It's a laugh to see the people who invaded Iraq and tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib getting on their high horse. The chickens are just beginning to come home to roost in this case.
First of all I am a Canadian, living in Canada and have no association with the actions of the US Government. Secondly I do not condone killing of innocent people in any situation, and just because there are other instances of this happening in the world doesn't minimize the fact that this attack is wrong.
I am expressing my support to the victims of this tragedy and my disgust over an attack which was clearly ment to hurt and kill innocent people. If this discussion was about a similar attack anywhere else in the world by anyone I would have the same opinion of the attack. But it's not.
Of course at this time the US was using its power at the UN to keep the Cambodian UN seat in the hands of the political coalition that the Cambodian communists belonged to.
He also points out the mass murder the US air force carried out in Cambodia, bombing rural peasant villages. That the US media ignored a genocide in East Timor that was happening at the time of the communists taking power in Cambodia.
Insofar as "denial of the Cambodian genocide" by Chomsky - could you give an example of a statement he made about Cambodia which was not true? If you are unable to do that, it is just mud-throwing - in some other thread he's said to be denying Nazi genocide in Europe because he was opposed to the jailing of a French professor accused of being a holocaust denier.